


Deterioration

by liuet



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:42:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22324981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liuet/pseuds/liuet
Summary: Ginoza trying to pull the pieces of himself back together in the aftermath of the Makishima case.
Relationships: Ginoza Nobuchika & Kougami Shinya, Ginoza Nobuchika & Masaoka Tomomi, Ginoza Nobuchika & Tsunemori Akane
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	1. Finality

From the time the bomb went off to when the emergency crew arrived, an entire universe had been born and died. 

At first it felt like everything happened very quickly. The echo of the explosion, the clearing smoke, the fallen body, the adrenaline-induced need to _move_. 

Then as time wore on, it slowed. Words spilled from lips like lifesblood from a wound, tears held back like arguments never begun. 

Time stretched, time waited. Time coalesced. 

It settled, slow, weary. 

Patient, entropic. 

And then,

finally,

nothing 

* * *

By the time the emergency crew got to him, Ginoza was nearly unconscious. Between the pain, mental distress, and blood loss, he was rendered unresponsive to the world around him. He was vaguely aware that there was more than just blood and flame, or the crystalline noise that had taken over his hearing. In that moment, however, he thought that if he moved the illusion would break and he would be swallowed by the abyss. 

The prick of the needle didn’t even register.

Then the abyss swallowed him anyway.


	2. Falter, Fall

When consciousness returned, he couldn’t tell how much time had passed.

His mind was a jumble. Nothing connected. Disparate. A flash here. Fragments. A piece there.

Something should have hurt.

Who had brought him here?

A loud crash, metal keening portentously.

How long had he been out?

A chase gone wrong.

What had happened to his Dominator?

His father telling him they had the same fate.

No.

He’d said the same _eyes_.

Where was his father?

His memories came together at last. His father’s death, the bomb, the metal storage containers, the tripwire. The trap that had been laid to catch them.

_Makishima_.

That thought got his eyes open, and his mind reeled. What had happened to Makishima? Had Tsunemori succeeded in bringing him in? Had they caught Kougami, as well? The brightness of the room made him squeeze his eyes shut again immediately, and another thought registered: where _was_ he?

He had to get back to… 

Another flash of memory, another wave of anguish. 

He vaguely heard alarms going off around him, a voice saying something about Hue changes, but he ignored them. He ached all over, though he could tell that meds were killing most of the pain. Even breathing felt like working out sore muscles. Otherwise, he thought he could feel the fog in his mind beginning to clear. Almost as suddenly as they had started, the alarms stopped.

A door opened, and he tried to open his eyes again, more slowly this time. It took time for his eyes to adjust, and when they had, he saw people in white coats looming over him.

“Good to see you conscious. Can you speak?” asked one of them, a middle-aged woman, as the others’ gazes ran over him.

“Yes,” he croaked. 

“Do you know where you are, Ginoza-san?” 

He tried to shake his head, but it felt heavy. “No. Hospital?”

“You’re in the Medical ward of the Ministry of Welfare Public Safety Bureau tower,” replied the woman. A doctor, he guessed. “You’ve been under heavy sedation, so you shouldn’t try to move much just yet. Do you remember what happened?”

Tripwire. Containers. A fight. A bomb. His father. Pain. _No. It wasn’t fair. How dare--_

The alarms sounded again, holo warnings glowing red in his periphery. 

[ Your Hue has changed. It is now burgundy. ]

[ Your Crime Coefficient has risen. Please take slow, deep breaths to calm down. ]

[ Until staff arrive, please follow the instructions. ]

The doctor frowned, and tapped at something on her holo device. The alarms stopped and the alerts blinked off.

Only one word stood out in his mind: _burgundy_. The last time he’d seen his Hue it had been magenta. Barely below the threshold to require him to be admitted for mental care. But this…?

He’d thought that once the Makishima case was over, he’d be able to deal with it. 

He hadn’t counted on everything going wrong. 

He hadn’t counted on…

His eyes stung, and he closed them. _No. No, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It couldn’t be like this._

“Ginoza-san, we need to discuss surgery.”

Opening his eyes, he narrowed them in confusion. What was she talking about? What surgery? Why would he need…?

“Your left arm was significantly damaged. There was no way to reconstruct it fully even with what remained.”

_No way to reconstruct it._

Ginoza couldn’t respond for a moment. All he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears, his own shallow breathing. His Hue was already clouded to a dangerous level. He could feel his heart beginning to beat faster. 

“Ginoza-san…?”

“What are my options?” he heard himself ask. It was as if someone else entirely had taken control. 

The doctor pursed her lips, but tapped her holo device again and brought up a display and placed it so he could see. “We can fit you with cybernetics at the shoulder, and go from there. There are a number of limb styles available. Otherwise...”

“Do it.” The response was nearly instantaneous. A reflex. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He wouldn’t be able to do his job with only one arm. 

“We’ll get you in for surgery as soon as we can,” she said and, nodding to her colleagues, started back towards the door.

And then he could get back to…

_Burgundy_.

“Doctor,” he said. She turned to look at him. “What’s… my Crime Coefficient?”

The look she gave him as the door closed was answer enough. 

* * *

He sat in disbelief for some time after that. He wasn’t sure how long. There was no clock in his view, and all the light in the room was artificial. There was nothing to ground him. 

_Burgundy_. 

He didn’t need to see the corresponding number to know his Crime Coefficient had gone above one hundred. Above the threshold. It had gone high enough to label him a latent criminal, high enough that Sybil considered him a threat. 

How had it come to this? This wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d done everything by the book, he’d been careful, he’d kept himself unattached. It wasn’t supposed to _hurt_. 

He had thrown away every scrap of compassion he’d had for those he’d hunted, secure in the knowledge that he was doing his duty. That he was doing what he was supposed to. That it was for the greater good.

He’d trusted the System.

But the System had stopped trusting him. 

He drew in a ragged breath and tried to move. Dull pain registered in a number of places, but he managed to extricate his arm--the one that was still there, some part of his mind reminded him morosely--from beneath the covers. He brought it up to rest on his forehead, fingers tangling themselves in his hair. 

_Burgundy_. 

How could he live like this? 

A few tears escaped as he squeezed his eyes shut once again. 

“Damn it…” The sound of his own voice felt muted. “Damn it. _Damn it!_ ” 

His hand clenched into a fist, pulling at his hair. 

This was the one thing that he’d feared. This was the one thing that he had worked hard--so _damnably_ hard--to keep from happening. This was the demon that had tormented him since childhood, and against whom he’d never been able to fully fight back. And now it had devoured him whole. 

He swore again and let the tears come. 

It wasn’t long before he’d exhausted the small store of energy he had and let his hand fall limp to his side. The tears still fell, his body nearly shaking with even that much effort. 

All he had wanted was to prove that he was he could succeed despite being the son of a latent criminal. That he was worth something more. That he was trustworthy. That faith in the Sybil System was what mattered.

But the System didn’t trust him anymore. 

_Burgundy_.

If he couldn’t trust in the System, then what could he trust?

* * *

His surgery came and went. Time was still fuzzy, clouded by painkillers, mood stabilizers, and who knew what else. 

His dreams disturbed him. Pieces of old cases, mangled body pieces strewn across enforcement sites, mundanities of life that fell into the cracks of conscious thought overlaid on one another. The criminal he’d watched destroyed by a Lethal Eliminator shot sitting at one of the Division 1 consoles, typing up his own death report. Kougami explaining Ginoza’s shortcomings while weaving his way through the metal wreckage Ginoza was trapped under. A plasticine sculpture of enforcers who had died years ago in his mother’s living room, with her nowhere to be seen. A Dominator locked in Lethal Eliminator mode in his hands, his father standing in front of him. 

Sometimes, he couldn’t tell the difference between waking and sleeping, and the dreams persisted. The jangling of nerves as they adjusted to the cybernetic fittings never quite faded fully, giving him a frustrating cognitive dissonance in the dreams where his body was still whole and a melancholy acceptance in his few lucid moments. 

The first time he’d awoken after his surgery, he’d thought he was in a dream. The world was blurred at the edges, the sounds around him seeming like everything was underwater. It was hard to move, almost impossible. 

He looked down to see why he couldn’t move and saw metal.

The reaction was visceral, his gut clenching so tightly he thought he might vomit. His father’s hand was there, not his own. He willed himself to wake up, to bring him back to himself, but it wasn’t until he faded back into an uneasy sleep that his mind reminded him that there was no waking up from this. 

Later, in one of his more lucid moments, a thought struck him. He’d been here for… days. He wasn’t entirely sure how long.

“Dime,” he said to the doctor. “What about my dog? Who’s taking care of him?” 

She looked at him for a moment, and replied, “I believe your former partner is looking after him.”

_Kougami will take good care of him_ , he thought. 

He frowned. No, that wasn’t right.

A pang of guilt hit him, like a wound reopened when he’d thought it healed. Kougami had been demoted to Enforcer years ago, now. His new partner was… 

A young woman’s face flashed through his mind.

Tsunemori Akane.

If she was taking care of Dime, then she hadn’t gotten herself killed. Her Crime Coefficient hadn’t risen high enough that she’d been flagged by Sybil. She hadn’t been horrifically injured. It was all somewhat of a relief, though so fleeting that the feeling was gone before it could take hold. 

It was all his fault. He’d ignored his therapist’s concerns about his Hue, he’d let pieces of the case get too personal. He’d been as bad as Kougami, letting things distract him from what was really important. As a result, it had been Tsunemori that had made many of the calls once they’d figured out Makishima’s destination when it should have been his job as senior partner. 

If he hadn’t put her in that position then maybe things would have worked out differently.

Tripwire. Containers. A fight. A bomb--

Alarms blared for a moment, red flashing alerts dismissed as soon as they appeared. 

The doctor gave him a stern look and adjusted something on her holo display. The medical machinery around him adjusted itself in response. “Your Psycho-Pass is still unstable,” she told him. “If you’re not careful, it might continue to deteriorate.”

Already, lucidity was harder to grasp. 

“No--wai--”

_Wait_ , he tried to say. _I’ll do better. I’ll keep it stable_. 

_Just don’t send me back to dream_.


	3. Progression or Regression

They were going to move him to Adachi Municipal Psycho-Pass Correction and Medical Care Center. After the last time his Crime Coefficient had spiked, he’d fallen into a malaise. Up against the overwhelmingness of the last few weeks, the only way he could deal with it was to surrender. He let himself shut down almost entirely. It was better to feel nothing than to be overcome by everything. 

He’d sent a formal notification to Chief Kasei resigning from the Bureau. It wasn’t like he was going to be allowed back, anyway. Tsunemori had visited him once in the MWPSB Medical ward. Their conversation had been short, almost terse on his part. 

She confirmed that Kougami still lived, that he’d escaped just as Ginoza had suspected he would. While he knew he should be relieved that the man who had been his best friend was still alive, he felt nothing more than a distant acceptance that he was gone all the same. Even the usual sour sting of betrayal he felt when he thought of Kougami too much didn’t come. 

She also confirmed the ultimate fate of his father. 

Tripwire. Containers. _No._

That grief was one of the few things that could penetrate the haze surrounding him, so he’d learned to force himself away from the memories, to force his emotions into line before it affected his Hue. 

He just had to build a wall around his heart. 

He wasn’t ready to discuss the details of that day, even with someone else who had been there. He wasn’t ready to allow himself to be vulnerable even that much. It was hard enough being that vulnerable just to himself. 

They moved him the day after Tsunemori visited. 

It was a similar facility to others he’d visited over the years, like the one Kunizuka had been in, like the one Kougami had briefly been in before he’d returned as an Enforcer. Unlike Kunizuka’s and like Kougami’s, his room was in a more isolated wing of the facility and no larger than his hospital room had been. There was a small extra partition of space to serve as a bathroom, the shatterproof glass clouding with holo displays when it was in use to give the illusion of privacy. 

Well lit. Sterile. Safe. 

A prison. 

* * *

The dreams returned, night after night. 

Sometimes they were still a jumble of reality and fiction. Sometimes it was just the same scene again and again, and him trying futilely to change what happened. 

Sometimes he tried to stop himself from tripping the wire that would entrap him. It never worked. 

Other times he tried to warn his father sooner, tried to free himself sooner, tried to be more honest with his father, with himself… It never worked.

Sometimes it was Kougami fighting with his father. 

Sometimes it was Tsunemori that rushed towards him, trying to reach the bomb before it went off. 

It didn’t matter what the dream was, the outcome was always the same. It ended with him bent over a body, bloody and alone. 

It would have been so much easier if it had been he who died that day.

When he woke, it was once again to the sound of a computerized voice saying, “Your Hue has changed. It is now carmine.”

He’d been crying again sometime in the night, the dried tears crystallizing and practically glueing his eyes shut. He could hear a couple of the staff outside his room trying to reassure him that he would be alright, though they didn’t physically enter the room. He took a deep breath and tried to reconstruct the wall between himself and his memories again. 

After a few minutes, his breathing and heart rate were back under control, and the alerts about his Hue had stopped. Carmine was the worst it had been since he’d gotten to Adachi, just a shade lighter than the burgundy it had been at the PSB’s medical ward. His mental state was still unstable at best. 

This time his dream had been one with Tsunemori. For far too long after he’d awoken, he thought he could feel the blood on his hand. The heartache… that was real. That was always real, no matter who was in the dream. 

To shed the feeling, he forced himself to look at his hands--both of them. As usual, his automatic reaction was to flinch at the sight of his cybernetic hand; he wasn’t used to seeing it yet, and it still reminded him of his father… but the sight of both his hands clear of blood relieved him. 

Obviously, he felt guilty about letting Tsunemori down. He’d been a terrible mentor and a harsh partner. Now he thought that perhaps he hadn’t given her enough credit. She had proven herself not only a competent Inspector, but a good detective, and had somehow managed to do it without clouding her Hue, without sacrificing her ideals. Deep down, he’d been jealous of her. He’d resented that she was able to do what he had secretly wished that he had been able to--or been brave enough to do. 

Having her show up in _his_ division and immediately bridge the gulf between Inspector and Enforcer had annoyed him. His Hue had already been clouding steadily due to job stress, and having another Inspector was _supposed to_ relieve some of that. Instead, it had compounded it. 

Even so, he was supposed to advise her, watch over her and her progress… and instead, he’d ignored her, sent her off on her own. He’d felt responsible for her, but wanted nothing to do with her. She’d rapidly improved under the combined tutelage of Kougami and Masaoka, which had annoyed him even more. 

Now… now, he almost resented her for being able to spend those months with the two of them instead of him. Almost.

He still hadn’t sorted through those feelings, wrapped up in a host of other complications as they were.

Carefully, he pushed himself upright. He was still recovering; cracked ribs, bruised bones and muscles, and any number of cuts and scrapes on top of the recovery from his surgery. 

The more he thought about Tsunemori, the more he wished he’d taken the time to talk to her. As he’d watched her grow in the short time she’d been with Division 1, his jealousy and admiration of her grew, as well. 

How was she able to do the things that she did? Why did her Hue stay so stable? She’d seen her friend horrifically murdered in front of her, had been unable to stop it, and yet her Hue had been surprisingly clear soon afterwards. What he wouldn’t give for some of her strength now… 

_She accepts things as they are_ , Masaoka had told him. 

Maybe that was the key. Ginoza had never really been one to be content, a trait that had only intensified as he’d gotten older. He could accept some things, but he was skeptical and cautious with anything that seemed counterintuitive or overly complicated. He was most at ease when things were straightforward and simple, with no room for doubt. 

He looked around at the white-and-glass room. Things were certainly straightforward and simple, here. He had his space. His meals were given to him at predetermined times. There were no misconceptions about why he was there. 

Yet he felt more uncertain about his life than ever before. 

He let out a deep breath and put his head in his hands. 

“Is this how you felt, too?” he wondered quietly, part of him wishing he could continue the conversation with his father. A moment later, he was blinking away tears again. He’d thought he was too exhausted to cry, but the question had hit upon his tightly held grief. 

It wasn’t until a week after learning of his father’s funeral that he’d cried because of it. He’d finally realized that he hadn’t properly said goodbye. To his surprise, he regretted that fact. 

Not knowing how to deal with that lack of closure, he’d tried to hide it all away. Maybe if he didn’t look at it, didn’t think about it, it would stop being quite so bitter.

Another moment and he’d shoved his emotions back into a corner. 

_Later_ , he told himself, knowing full well that later would never come.

Thinking about Tsunemori was easier, less painful. 

He almost wished she were there to talk to. He hadn’t felt the need to talk--or rather, he hadn’t _wanted_ to talk--when she’d visited him in the medical ward, but she was one of the only people who might understand some part of what he was going through. Even Aoyanagi wouldn’t understand. 

Tsunemori would have known what to say to him. Like Kougami, she’d always been able to read his moods, if not his reasons. What would she say now? 

He almost smiled for a moment. She probably would have told him he was moping, and for him to get it together. Politely. 

She had been right to call him out when he’d called her a child, and though he would have preferred she not do it in the office, considering the situation it had been more than reasonable. He’d deserved it, in a lot of ways. After thinking about it, he’d found he was glad that she’d stood up for herself, argued with him when she’d thought he was wrong. That attitude reminded him a little of Aoyanagi, and he wondered if the two of them would end up working together now. 

After nine years as an inspector, he’s thought that he had wisdom to pass on… but instead, he realized that he should have listened more to her, too. If nothing else, he could have learned something about her mental fortitude, how she thought and how she took care of herself… He’d tried to manage his own stress with quickly fraying results, and that--communicating with his partner--should have been something he had considered. The PSB therapist had told him to talk to someone. He didn’t have a girlfriend, and at the time he hadn’t even considered going to his father… and he hadn’t wanted to bother Tsunemori at all with his problems, but perhaps he should have at least acknowledged them. He had been her partner, but he had fucked it up. He hadn’t trusted her when he should have, like she appeared to trust him despite how he had treated her. 

She had deserved more. Now, he didn’t know if he would ever be able to make amends. 

If he ever saw her again, he would apologize. 

At least that might be a start. 


	4. A New Path

Part of his admission to Adachi included sessions with a therapist. He came to Ginoza’s cell--that’s what it was, and he had accepted it easily enough; he was a latent criminal now, of course he was going to be in a cell--once a day. 

“Your Hue looks a little better today,” commented his therapist, a middle-aged man by the name of Terada. “Burnt orange. Better than the cerise yesterday, though I did see it dropped back to magenta for a short while...”

“And then went right back to cerise,” Ginoza added stonily. He hated this. The constant reminders of where his Hue was at were hurting more than they were helping.

He’d been so concerned with his Psycho-Pass for so long, it had been strangely freeing to realize that he didn’t have to worry about it anymore. The thing he’d feared so long had come to pass, and after he’d gotten over the initial shock of it, he realized that he didn’t have the energy to care anymore. Everything else had gone wrong, so of course that had, too. 

It was hardly a surprise. It was almost inevitable. For all that he’d professed to the contrary, he had felt a deep certainty that he was destined to follow in the footsteps of his father. That certainty was what had driven a wedge between them, at least on Ginoza’s side. 

“Ginoza-san,” Terada chided, “it’s entirely normal to have some fluctuation in your Hue after a traumatic event. The fact that it did drop back to magenta, even temporarily, is a good sign.”

Ginoza sighed. “I understand what you’re getting at, but this isn’t helping.”

He didn’t want to tell Terada that he’d already resigned himself to being a latent criminal. That he’d given up hope that his Psycho-Pass would ever fully recover. That he was alright with that outcome. 

_This is how things are_ , he told himself. _Be like Tsunemori. Accept it, work with it instead of fighting against it._

“And what do you think would help you more?” Terada asked in a politely neutral tone. 

“Time,” he replied after a moment. It was the only answer that he could bring himself to say out loud. What he really wanted to say was “talking to my friend” or “talking to my father,” but neither of those things were options anymore. 

Kougami was frequently on his mind, especially when Ginoza’s nightmares featured him. Not only was it the tangle of reality and fiction surrounding his father’s death, but he’d had more than a few nights recalling the parking garage when his Dominator had… malfunctioned, broken, _something_ , and he’d very nearly killed Kougami.

He’d been ready to pull the trigger. 

He would have done it, if Tsunemori hadn’t pulled hers first. 

At the time, the adrenaline had muddied up his feelings, but now he’d sorted through some of it. It terrified him how close he’d come to killing Kougami. He still tensed up when he thought about it. And of course, looking back on it, he realized what a stupid thing it would have been to do. 

Did he really think that if he’d shot Kougami with a Lethal Eliminator shot, even on Chief Kasei’s orders, that he’d be able to justify it to himself? 

The reason he’d hesitated long enough for Tsunemori to shoot first was because the act had been so unthinkable to him in the first place. No matter how much he’d told himself that Kougami--and by extension, his father--had turned his back on humanity, had become something not worth acknowledging as equal, he’d still cared. 

Though he’d buried his compassion deep, he’d always _cared_. 

“While time does heal all wounds, there are other methods that can also help,” intoned Terada, interrupting his thoughts. “Talking to someone, for example.”

That advice again. 

“Thank you, Doctor,” Ginoza replied just as blandly, “but you aren’t the one I’d like to talk to.”

“Then, who would you like to talk to?”

He stared down at his hands, schooling his expression, not letting it give away how much it hurt to answer. “No one who will be coming here.”

“If you change your mind…”

He wouldn’t. He knew that much.

He sat quietly as Terada tried a few more times to converse with him. It wasn’t that anything the man was saying was wrong, it was just that Ginoza was so tired of it all. So he just didn’t say anything.

Just as Terada was about to leave, Ginoza finally spoke. 

“Doctor,” he said, “What do you think justice is?”

Terada turned and cocked his head at the question. “Justice?” He thought for a few moments. “I suppose it’s the receiving of rewards or punishments based on one’s adherence to societal moral standards or wrongdoings. It’s Sybil’s judgement. What do you believe it is?”

At one time, he would have had an answer very similar to Terada’s. 

Now, however…

“I’m not sure anymore,” he admitted. _And I’m not even sure I knew in the first place_ , he added silently.

* * *

Everything settled quickly into routines, and Ginoza lost himself more and more. 

Hours turned into days, days into weeks. Before he realized it, he’d been there nearly a month. His Hue had steadily stabilized, going from burnt orange to forest green before settling into a Persian blue and barely changing for days at a time. 

Terada came by every day with new questions. 

“What do you remember about…?”

It didn’t matter what Terada asked about. Ginoza’s answers were always short, giving away only as much as he had to. It didn’t matter what Ginoza’s answers were; they always led to the next question. 

“Did that scare you?” “What do you blame yourself for?” “Why do you believe…?”

Whatever the answer, it always led to more.

“Tell me about those feelings.”

As time wore on, he’d let himself delve deeper and deeper into introspection. Terada’s questions every day guided him through part of the labyrinth of his mind, leading him inexorably towards his core, even though he rarely answered them aloud. As he felt slightly more stable, he allowed himself to linger on the murkier parts, the parts that cut like shards of glass. 

The memories he tried to suppress. 

The fear he felt at accepting them. 

The guilt that ate at him for his failures. 

His helplessness, his weakness, his shame. 

His deep sadness at losing the only people who would have understood. 

When sleep evaded him, he stared into the darkness and dismantled himself. 

This time, it was Kougami that haunted his thoughts; a flash of Kougami standing in front of him when Chief Kasei had told him to shoot, when all of his loyalties had been called into question. He’d seen the look of resignation that Kougami gave him, seen the disappointment behind it. 

At the time, he’d thought it was only fair: Kougami had betrayed him, had let him down in all the ways a friend wasn’t supposed to, it stood to reason that he would return the favor eventually. It was hard to look past the old feeling of betrayal he felt when he thought about Kougami. It had colored his relationship with Kougami for so long that he didn’t know if there really was anything else beyond it anymore. The fact that he had also betrayed Kougami...

Internally, he wryly laughed. 

Still, even that failure had weighed on him. He couldn’t even live up to an Enforcer’s expectations. 

It was frustrating, telling himself that he didn’t care what the Enforcers thought. Yet when two of the Enforcers on his team were his father and his best friend… even if he refused to acknowledge those connections, he knew. Those bonds were there, whether he wanted them or not. 

He had ignored them the best he could, for as long as he could, but he’d always been keenly aware of their presence. It was part of why he’d sent them both off with Tsunemori when she’d arrived; it meant that he didn’t have to deal with them on top of all the other mounting stress in his life. 

He found himself picking through pieces of conversations, trying to find some peace of mind. Would either of them have forgiven him for driving them away? Would he ever forgive himself? 

He’d always blamed his father and Kougami for their Hues clouding, for becoming latent criminals. Really it was that he blamed them for leaving him. If only they’d tried harder, if only they hadn’t become so entrenched in their obsessions, their search for… what? Truth? Justice? He didn’t know anymore. All he knew was that he’d been left alone time and again, and there was nothing he could do.

Now, seeing firsthand just how little control he really had… how little control Kougami and his father must have had… It didn’t make the hurt go away, but at least he could admit that he’d been wrong in solely blaming them. 

_Accept things as they are_.

The bitter truth was that he hadn’t known how to deal with his emotions, and so he’d lashed out. He’d turned viciously to law after his father had become a latent criminal, arming himself with facts to use against the people who used his father against him. When his father had transferred to Division 1 along with Kougami, he’d drawn a line between them and done his best not to cross it. After Kougami became a latent criminal, too, he’d drawn that line between them and told himself he didn’t care. It took more and more to keep the stress at bay. The outlets he had for stress had relieved the immediate symptoms, but they hadn’t done a damn thing to help him cope with the underlying problem.

It was no wonder he’d ended up here.

He could almost hear what Kougami would say to him if he saw him like this. 

_I didn’t think that you would be one to let yourself be content in a place like this, Gino.  
You’ve still got a choice, here. Why waste it?_

He shook his head at the shade of his friend. 

It wasn’t that he was content--far from it--but he wasn’t sure of what else he had now. Nine years as an Inspector. Another year and he’d have had a position in one of the other Ministry of Welfare offices if he’d wanted one. He could have gone into other aspects of law, if he’d wanted, too. Not that he’d really given it much thought; even with Kougami and his father both as Enforcers, the CID had been where he felt he belonged. Whether it was because his estranged father and his former best friend were crutches for him, supports even as he denied them, he couldn’t say. 

Now, he had neither of them. 

And what could he do if he was alone?

He sighed, brought his arm up to cover his face. “I’m not as strong as you,” he whispered, imagining that he really was talking to Kougami. Imagined for a moment that the strife between them had been mended. “How am I supposed to come back from this?”

_You’ve still got a choice, here. Why waste it?_

_Accept things as they are._

They were empty words in an empty room.

And yet, somehow, they made him feel a little less empty of hope.


	5. Begin Again

His conversations with Terada hadn’t progressed much. 

He hadn’t opened up much, preferring even now to keep his problems close to his heart. He thought Terada had surmised some of it, anyway. That was what therapists were supposed to be good at, wasn’t it? Or was guessing someone else’s problems too much like a detective deducing the thought processes of a criminal? 

Terada had brought a file with him this time. It was a notice from the MWPSB, informing him that the Sybil System had deemed him acceptable to be an Enforcer. A position for him was open in Division 1, if he agreed. 

It was a demotion. It wasn’t what he would have chosen for himself, if he could. But it was at the CID, doing a job he was intimately familiar with, albeit in a new capacity. 

_Learn to compromise._

His father’s words came back to him, accompanied by a now-familiar twist of emotion. 

With time, thinking about his father had gotten marginally easier. The memories from the last case still intruded at inopportune moments, though now after the first second of terror he could at least bring himself to walk through them. 

Tripwire.

He’d stopped just a moment too late after his father’s warning. As soon as he’d felt the wire release, he realized his mistake, but there was nothing he could do. There was a noise, an explosion, and suddenly...

Containers. 

The storage containers came crashing down. He was too slow to avoid them. 

He was trapped, his arm was pinned. He could feel the groaning weight of the metal above him, precariously poised to come down and crush him in an instant. He had to get out.

But when he looked up to tell his father he didn’t need help, he shouted a warning instead.

A fight. 

Helpless, he watched his father struggle with Makishima. 

At the time, he’d just wanted to catch Makishima, finish the mission, get it over with and go home. He was still mad at his father for the last confrontation they’d had, he needed more time to deal with the stress, needed time and space to be able to come back and have a productive discussion. It was Tsunemori’s influence, of course, that had made him try a little harder at reconciling with his father. 

He’d assumed that his father could restrain Makishima. 

He hadn’t counted on Makishima playing dirty.

A bomb. 

A moment of panic. On whose behalf, he wasn’t sure. 

He would lose Makishima. He would lose his father. He might be able to live with one of those things.

But Makishima must have had the same kind of insight into his father’s mind that Masaoka had with criminals.  
Ginoza saw his father’s thoughts as plainly as if they were his own. 

It was unacceptable. Makishima was more important. His father had to keep Makishima from getting away. If Ginoza himself died in order to make that happen, then that was just how it was going to be. 

Besides, it wasn’t like his father had chosen him over his work before. 

When the bomb landed in front of him, Ginoza’s mind went entirely blank. 

There was no flashing of his life before his eyes, no wondering, no regrets or wishes or last words. Just… blank.

_Shit_.

He froze.

He could do nothing.

He would die.

His father lunged for the bomb, trying to throw it away at the last moment. 

It went off before it left his hand.

His father fell, and Ginoza’s world narrowed to only what was immediately in front of him.

His father. 

He had to get to his father. 

Pain. 

He hadn’t even really registered that he’d pulled himself free from the containers. There was blood, so much blood. There was pain. His arm wouldn’t respond. 

He dropped down at his father’s side. He was still alive. He was holding on, but his injuries didn’t look good.

_No._

_No, no, no, no._

_It can’t be happening like this._

_Why did you save me?_

_It’s not fair._

_What do I do?_

He’d thought he would have more time. 

He’d thought that losing his father wouldn’t affect him, that he’d already mourned him when he became a latent criminal.

Faced with the sudden reality of the situation, he realized just how unprepared he was for it. There were no protocols for this. There were no training simulations that could have helped.

There was only himself, and his father, and the quickly dwindling time they had left. Like sand in an hourglass slipping away steadily, it was a tangible thing at that moment, and still he had no idea what he was supposed to do.

In all his years as an Inspector, nothing had horrified him more.

Nothing had made him regret how he’d treated his father more. Nothing had made him realize just how much his father had cared.

Then, there was nothing more that he could do.

Now, he’d pulled together the scraps of his life and built an asylum for himself out of the words others--Tsunemori, Kougami, his father--had left him. He was still far from alright, but at least he’d made it to being steady.

Shaking off the memories, he focused on the holo display with the offer from his old Division that Terada had given him. 

“Something wrong?” Terada asked.

Ginoza shook his head. 

“You’re considering the offer, right?”

“I’m… not sure.” That was a lie. The moment he’d seen it, he’d known he would take it. It twisted something in his gut, a feeling of longing that he couldn’t quite name. 

“Considering your history, I think the MWPSB will be willing to wait for a while to get an acceptable answer,” Terada mused. “And I did hear that you had been specifically requested.”

Ginoza looked up at Terada. “Requested?”

Terada nodded. “Mm, by the Division 1 Inspector.”

Tsunemori… unless Aoyanagi had been transferred temporarily. In either case, both women would be able to assess his usefulness well enough. And if either of them--both of them?--wanted him back at the CID… it put him a little at ease. 

Someone still wanted him. He wasn’t worthless. 

“I see,” was all he said. 

“Well, you should think on it, in any case,” Terada told him. “I’ll come back tomorrow and see what you think.”

Ginoza shut off the holo, handed the device back to Terada, and thanked him.

Terada’s eyebrows shot upwards. “Casual thanks? You must be in a good mood, Ginoza-san.”

Slightly embarrassed, Ginoza shrugged. “It’s nothing. Just nice to know that the Inspector spared a thought for me, that’s all.”

After giving him a scrutinizing look, Terada said seriously, “You’re allowed to be happy, Ginoza-san. I hope you know that. Even as a latent criminal, you should be allowed happiness.”

_You’ve still got a choice, here. Why waste it?_

_Accept things as they are._

_Learn to compromise._

Ginoza’s eyes widened for a moment. Of course he knew that he was allowed to be happy. 

But hearing it said out loud was different, somehow.

Terada left before Ginoza had thought of a response. 

In his mind, Ginoza went through the offer from the MWPSB again. 

He could do the things he’d been good at. He knew Kunizuka and Karanomori, he knew the other Inspectors… it was only his pride he would need to worry about. It was only the juvenile fear of judgement from others, from the Enforcers he’d taken such a hard-line policy towards for so long, that made him hesitate. 

There was some kind of karmic justice to it, ending up in the same position as Kougami and his father. For all that he’d pushed them away, he’d also wished he could understand them. This seemed as close as he was ever going to get, now. 

For so many years, he’d hated the similarities he saw between himself and his father. He’d gone so far as to go by his mother’s last name, to cut off as many ties as he could between himself and Masaoka. He’d taken to wearing glasses to hide the resemblances. But it had never been enough. He remembered both of his parents’ comments about how his expression looked like Masaoka’s. He remembered his classmates telling him he must look like a criminal, even though he knew that wasn’t how it worked. He remembered the sad way that his mother would look at him before her sickness had taken over. 

Now, perhaps, the similarities wouldn’t trouble him so much.

Now, they were the only things he had. 

There were so many things he wished he’d said. The last few months of his time as an Inspector, though they had been more stressful in many ways, had finally started to bridge the rift between him and his father. He’d finally needed to seek out the older man’s advice, finally wanted that connection, or at least the option of it. 

There were some things that he couldn’t bring himself to forgive, didn’t know if he would ever be able to forgive. Even if his father had lived, he didn’t think they would have ever had an easy relationship. But he would have liked that more than not having him there at all. 

He sat hunched over and scrubbed at his face with his hands. 

“The one time I need your advice and you’re not here to give it…”

All he had were the leftover pieces of conversation, the scattered remains of a broken relationship. 

_If you start to question this job, be on your guard.  
What lies beyond that could be the same pitfall that I fell into._

_It’s not about what’s right.  
It’s just compromise. _

_Protect yourself._

_You’re on a different sort of path…  
and from the bottom of my heart, I believe that’s for the best._

_Your eyes… look so much like mine did at your age…_

He squeezed his eyes shut as the last memory of his father washed over him. For a short while, he thought, he could let himself be lost in its grip. What else did he have anymore?

* * *

When Terada reappeared the next day just as he had promised, Ginoza told him he’d made a decision. 

“I’d like to go back to the CID,” he said. Terada didn’t look surprised in the least. 

“You’re sure, then?”

Ginoza nodded.

It wasn’t what his father would have wanted for him--his father _had_ wanted a normal life for him; he understood that, finally--but it was what he wanted. It was the one way he could think of that might help him reconcile whatever turmoil was left within him. It was the one way he felt like he might be able to finally understand his father. 

“I’ll see about the discharge formalities, then,” said Terada with a small polite smile.

Ginoza breathed deeply. Already he felt some sort of weight lifted from him, as if just by voicing the decision he had changed something tangible. 

_You still have a choice, here. Why waste it?_

_Accept things as they are._

_Learn to compromise._

There would be many more choices ahead of him. There would be things he didn’t want to face, things he’d hoped never to have to face in the first place. His life had been inexorably altered, and he was going to have to deal with the consequences of that.

But the people he cared for, whether they were with him or not, whether he admitted it or not, would be his pillars. He would keep their words, their advice, close to his heart and let it determine his path. 

_Protect yourself_.

He would protect Tsunemori, whom he’d seen leaning towards the same precipice that had caught his father, Kougami, and now himself. She’d given him hope in the darkness. He didn’t want her to be caught in it, as well.

_You’re on a different sort of path…  
and from the bottom of my heart, I believe that’s for the best._

He would make his own path. Even though he was in the same position as his father and Kougami had been, he wouldn’t fall into the same sort of traps that they had. He would make the most of what he had.

_Your eyes… look so much like mine did at your age…_

There wasn’t any reason to hide them anymore. It didn’t matter what others thought. He was who he was, and he was the only one who got to determine that. 

He was starting to learn what he needed to compromise on.

He had no choice but to accept things as they were.

He still had a choice.

Why waste it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to mss3ng for beta reading, and for pointing out where I could add in even more emotional turmoil. <3


End file.
